On this day in 1964, Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton threw the loser label at his fellow Republican, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in the final phase of their contest for the GOP presidential nomination.

Before stumping for convention votes within the Florida delegation, Scranton charged that Goldwater’s chances to defeat President Lyndon B. Johnson in November, based on statistics from what he said were “double-checked” polls, are “unbelievably poor.” Moreover, his candidacy, “would be injurious to innumerable [Republican] candidates.”

Scranton read his disparaging statement about Goldwater to reporters over the intercom of an Eastern Airlines Electra II chartered plane at 18,000 feet, while doing knee bends, as it flew south toward Miami. The main reason he had entered the race, he said, was his conviction that the odds against a Goldwater victory were “so long that only the most optimistic partisan would have anything but a glimmer of hope.”

When the GOP delegates met on July 13 in San Francisco, Scranton’s backers vainly launched a last-ditch effort on his behalf. The Goldwater forces, however, had the situation well in hand; he won the Republican nomination on the first ballot, with 833 votes. Scranton had 214. In his acceptance speech, Goldwater said: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And … moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

In November, Johnson defeated Goldwater, carrying 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, setting a high-water mark for all future Democratic presidential candidates. In the aftermath of the election, conservative forces came to dominate the Republican Party, setting the stage for a political realignment that culminated in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory over President Jimmy Carter.

Scranton, who went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Gerald Ford, died on July 28, 2013, at age 96.